Skip to main content

What is fastest way to travel in Harry Potter universe?


As the question title says, what's the fastest way to travel in the Harry Potter universe?



Answer




In the order of increased fastness:




  • Floo network:


    Definitely not instantaneous, but pretty fast:



    'But don't panic and get out too early, wait until you see Fred and George.' (CoS)






  • Portkey:


    Seems to be a couple of seconds:



    It happened immediately: Harry felt as though a hook just behind his navel had been suddenly jerked irresistibly forwards. His feet had left the ground; he could feel Ron and Hermione on either side of him, their shoulders banging into his; they were all speeding forwards in a howl of wind and swirling colour; his forefinger was stuck to the boot as though it was pulling him magnetically onwards and then –
    His feet slammed into the ground; Ron staggered into him and he fell over; the Portkey hit the ground near his head with a heavy thud. (GoF)





  • Apparition:


    This seems the fastest subjectively, but of course, given overall JKR Maths proficiency, she wasn't as precise as one would have preferred for numerical comparisons:




    Harry felt Dumbledore's arm twist away from him and redoubled his grip; the next thing he knew, everything went black; he was being pressed very hard from all directions; he could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around his chest; his eyeballs were being forced back into his head; his eardrums were being pushed deeper into his skull and then –
    He gulped great lungfulls of cold night air and opened his streaming eyes.



    and



    Twycross stepped forwards, turned gracefully on the spot with his arms outstretched and vanished in a swirl of robes, reappearing at the back of the Hall. 'Remember the three Ds,' he said, 'and try again... one – two – three –'








Also, there are two more ways to travel near-instantaneously:




  • Vanishing cabinet. We don't know how fast it transports you or if it's using one of the 3 methods above (no canon info), but presumably it's as fast as the other methods.




  • As @Kushtrim P. noted in a comment, you can use time-turner+normal travel method (your speed of spacial travel may be as slow as you want, but absolute arrival time is arbitrarily small due to temporal displacement). That is indeed a very well known method of travel in Science Fiction.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...

the dark tower - Nozz-a-la vs. Pepsi in Stephen King's 'Kingdom Hospital'

In the TV Series ' Kingdom Hospital ', at the end of the series, with various things appearing to have retro-actively changed, we see the vending machines have changed from carrying Nozz-a-la to Pepsi. I realize Nozz-a-la has shown up in a number of other Stephen King stories ( The Dark Tower , for example, leaps to mind), but is there any specific indication to what it means here? I.e., has the core group switched to an alternate world or some such, or is this just a small time-travel change effect? Said another way.. Have they really changed their past (and, therefore, their world) or have they simply returned to an alternate world, leaving theirs still intact? Answer TL;DR: Exactly what the switch from Nozz-A-La to Pepsi is supposed to mean isn't entirely clear, but there is considerable evidence that the change is intended to serve as a meaningful hint, conveying a deeper significance, both internally (within the Kingdom Hospital story itself) and externally (in re...